While American and Chinese tech giants shine on the stock market, few European pure plays are publicly listed – and those tend to be small or mid-cap companies. Here is our selection.
FOUNDED: 1994
HEADQUARTERS: GENEVA (CH)
EMPLOYEES: 337
2025 REVENUE: CHF 54.2 M
STOCK EXCHANGE: INFO
Surprisingly, Infomaniak did not use its stock market listing to raise capital. And yet, given the phenomenal sums invested by its American competitors, the Geneva-based company could have used the flotation to bolster its coffers, considering the scale of upcoming investments. In the first six months of 2026 alone, the company’s investments doubled to nearly 23.8 million francs, compared with 11.7 million over the same period in 2025, with funds primarily allocated to increasing the capacity of its existing data centres. And the bill is set to rise further – Infomaniak plans to invest up to 200 million Swiss francs over the coming years. To sustain its growth, the company plans to build a fifth data centre – D5 – slated to open by 2028. “To finance it, we may turn to the market, perhaps take out a loan, or perhaps fund it from our own resources. Nothing has been finalised as yet,” explains Marc Oehler, CEO of Infomaniak. “So far, the company has financed its investments mainly from its own cash flow, supplemented by credit facilities, while reinvesting its profits.”
So why go public? For the CEO, the benefit lies elsewhere. “Being listed gives us greater visibility and compels us to be even more transparent. Furthermore, we operate in a highly competitive sector, where every company is vying to attract the best talent. Being able to incentivise our employees through shares can be a bonus when attracting candidates.” In any case, the markets have welcomed Infomaniak’s arrival: the share price soared by more than 50% on its first day of trading. No analysts are currently covering the stock.
Its stock market performance will depend on the company’s ability to capitalise on the enthusiasm for digital sovereignty, while managing to finance its infrastructure. There is one caveat, however, according to Dimitri Kallianiotis, technology investment specialist at Union Bancaire Privée (UBP): “At present, very large companies cannot use sovereign services because they require enormous computing power. Only SMEs can migrate to this type of service.” This is not a concern, according to the company, which notes in its IPO prospectus that in the EU, around 99% of businesses are SMEs – Infomaniak’s core target market – and around half already purchase cloud services. In the first half of 2026 (unaudited figures), net sales of goods and services rose by 16.2% to 31.0 million francs.
FOUNDED: 1972
HEADQUARTERS: WALLDORF (DE)
EMPLOYEES: 112,000
2025 REVENUE: €36.8 BN
STOCK EXCHANGE: SAP
SAP needs no introduction. In a digital sector overwhelmingly dominated by US companies, the German software publisher is one of the few European firms to stand out. The company, which claims to be the world leader in enterprise management software that enables firms to centralise and automate their core operational processes, became Europe’s most valuable group in March 2025, driven by the boom in cloud computing and artificial intelligence. But since then, the trend has reversed. Between its peak in February 2025 and 1 October 2026, SAP’s share price fell by nearly 35%. This decline was triggered by its cloud business’s results falling short of expectations and the emergence of AI-based programming tools, which have raised fears among investors that these could be used to create alternatives to the applications sold by SAP. However, a majority of analysts recommend buying the stock, convinced that it is poised for a rebound. To regain momentum, SAP could capitalise on the rise of sovereign solutions.
The company offers dedicated services such as the SAP Sovereign Cloud, which enables businesses and the public sector to adopt cloud computing and artificial intelligence while ensuring full control over their data and infrastructure in compliance with local regulations. According to the company, more than 180 customers have already adopted this solution.
FOUNDED: 2007
HEADQUARTERS: MUNICH (DE)
EMPLOYEES: 400
2025 REVENUE: €89.1 M
STOCK EXCHANGE: NFN
If you’ve recently contacted a helpline, you may have spoken to Nia FrontDesk, the AI assistant developed by the German company Nfon. It greets callers, answers frequently asked questions and, if necessary, directs them to the right person. With over 54,000 customers, Nfon has established itself in just a few years as one of Europe’s leading providers of cloud-based telephony for businesses. Operating in 23 European countries, including Germany, France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy, the company offers cloud-based communication services and AI-powered solutions.
Up against US hyperscalers, Nfon has made digital sovereignty a strategic pillar of its growth. Its customers’ communication data (calls, messages, video conferences) is transmitted and stored in geo-redundant data centres located exclusively within the European Union, in accordance with European data protection laws. In the first six months of the year, Nfon generated revenue of €42.5 million, down 3.8% year-on-year. A majority of analysts recommend buying the share, which has lost around 45% of its value over the past year, and are anticipating a rebound.
FOUNDED: 2016
HEADQUARTERS: PARIS (FR)
EMPLOYEES: 40
2025 REVENUE: €1.74 M
STOCK EXCHANGE: ALTAI
In the United States, AI giants are investing colossal sums and boasting stratospheric valuations. On this side of the Atlantic, however, the sums involved seem paltry. Apart from Mistral AI – France’s unlisted AI flagship – only a handful of startups are venturing into this field. Among them, LightOn stands out as the only publicly traded pure play. Founded in 2016 and listed on Euronext Growth Paris since November 2024, the company develops and markets sovereign generative AI solutions for businesses and public sector organisations. Its flagship product, Paradigm, enables the integration of AI functionalities and large language models (LLMs) on-site, ensuring complete data confidentiality. LightOn highlights three main use cases for organisations deploying its solutions: pooling IT support, implementing secure document assistants, and analysing confidential and large-volume data.
Since its IPO in November 2024, the share price has been on a steady decline, falling from over €20 in February 2025 to below €4 at the end of May 2026. Nevertheless, the signing of a contract with Infocom’94 – a consortium that pools the IT management of 26 local authorities in Val-de-Marne – followed by the announcement in mid-June of the roll-out of LightOn’s solutions in around 15 French public institutions, sent the share price soaring, exceeding €9 on 22 June. “The move to live deployment by these public institutions marks a historic turning point: sovereign AI is no longer a regulatory ideal or a subject for experimentation; it is the driving force behind the modernisation of our state,” said Igor Carron, CEO and co-founder of LightOn. Unfortunately, the share price has since plummeted – it was trading at around €3 on 1 October. This is because the company’s losses continue to mount. In the first half of 2026, LightOn recorded strong business growth, with revenue of €1.1 million, up 51%, driven notably by a 34% increase in sales of Paradigm licences. Yet, at the same time, the net loss amounted to €4 million, compared with €3.7 million a year earlier. The sole analyst covering the stock recommends holding it.
FOUNDED: 1999
HEADQUARTERS: ROUBAIX (FR)
EMPLOYEES: 3,000
2025 REVENUE: €1.085 BN
STOCK EXCHANGE: OVH
Reaching for the stars. On 28 September 2026, the French firm OVHcloud announced that it had been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) to build, alongside the Canadian company CGI, the Digital EO platform, which will host all satellite-based Earth observation data. It is a colossal undertaking: by 2035, the ESA plans to manage over 500 petabytes of data, all of which will be hosted entirely on European soil. The contract exemplifies how OVHcloud – which describes itself as Europe’s leading cloud provider, operating more than 500,000 servers across 46 data centres – is capitalising on the current enthusiasm for ‘digital sovereignty’ across the Old Continent.
In April 2026, a consortium comprising DEEP, OVHcloud and Clever Cloud was selected by the European Commission to set up sovereign cloud services for European Union institutions. The overall contract, awarded to four suppliers and consortia, has a maximum value of €180 million over six years. A month earlier, OVHcloud announced that it had been chosen as a subcontractor to Senacor Technologies, the service provider selected by the European Central Bank (ECB) for the digital euro project, which aims to offer a digital payment method in shops, online and between individuals.
Bolstered by these new contracts, OVHcloud, which has 1.7 million customers, is enjoying a spectacular year on the Paris Stock Exchange. Since 1 January 2026, its share price has soared by more than 120% (as of 30 September). The surge has prompted analysts to exercise caution, with ‘hold’ now being the most common recommendation. In the first nine months of its 2026 financial year, OVHcloud reported a 6% increase in revenue. And the company has no shortage of projects to sustain its growth. Last June, it launched OVHai Workspace, an office software suite designed to compete with Microsoft 365. OVHcloud also aims to make its mark in artificial intelligence. To achieve this, the company completed two major acquisitions in the sector in 2026: Dragon LLM – a French developer of specialised generative AI models – in March, followed by the Paris-based startup Gladia, an expert in audio transcription, in July. “We’ve been talking about sovereignty and the risks of dependency for a long time,” Octave Klaba, founder and CEO of OVHcloud, told the daily newspaper Les Echos. “What we had envisaged is now coming to pass and should boost European demand. We want to become one of the key players in European LLMs alongside others such as Mistral.”
FOUNDED: 2001
HEADQUARTERS: PARIS (FR)
EMPLOYEES: 250
2025 REVENUE: €26.3 M
STOCK EXCHANGE: ALSTW
During your last video conference on Microsoft Teams or Zoom, were you sure that your communication was secure, that no prying ears were listening in on your company’s secrets? Founded in 2001, the Paris-based software publisher Streamwide specialises in secure communications for critical environments, aimed at businesses and public sector organisations. Among its flagship products is Rooms – a virtual meeting service that competes with Teams and emphasises privacy and data sovereignty. The solution is specifically designed to limit data exposure to extraterritorial legislation such as the US CLOUD Act: in ‘on-premises’ mode, information is processed and stored on the client’s physical servers; in ‘SaaS’ mode, Streamwide states that its European clients’ data is hosted in data centres located in Europe.
The French company markets two other flagship applications, inspired by messaging services such as WhatsApp: the ultra-secure ‘Team on mission’, used, for example, by the GIGN (the French gendarmerie’s elite unit), the French Ministry of the Interior and the Thales Group; and ‘Team on the run’, which is aimed at more traditional clients such as EDF. Notably, in September 2025, the US telecommunications giant AT&T chose Streamwide to secure communications for FirstNet – the US communications network for emergency services (police, fire services, etc.) built and operated in partnership with AT&T. In the United States, FirstNet works with over 30,000 public safety agencies and organisations. In the first half of 2026, Streamwide’s revenue amounted to €12.79 million, up 12% compared with the first half of 2025. Over five years, the share price has risen by nearly 90%, reaching an all-time high of €89.6 in September 2026, before retreating below the €69 mark in early October. The sole analyst covering the stock recommends holding it.
FOUNDED: 1988
HEADQUARTERS: MONTABAUR (DE)
EMPLOYEES: 3,800
2025 REVENUE: €1.32 BN
STOCK EXCHANGE: IOS
The announcement initially failed to move the market. On 10 September 2026, internet service provider Ionos – majority-owned by United Internet – announced a restructuring plan set to reduce its workforce from 3,800 full-time equivalents to 3,350. Twenty days later, however, the share price plunged when Metzler Bank began covering Ionos with a ‘sell’ recommendation. As a result, after exceeding €35 at the end of September, the share price fell by more than 10% to trade at around €31 on 1 October. Yet, the restructuring plan is not linked to any financial warning regarding the company. In the first six months of 2026, Ionos posted revenue of €701 million, up 6.9% year-on-year, and raised its full-year forecast, now projecting growth of 8% compared with 7% previously.
So why the scepticism? According to Metzler Bank, Ionos is first and foremost a traditional web hosting provider, poorly positioned to capitalise on growth in the cloud and artificial intelligence. The company, which claims to have 6.91 million customers as of 30 June 2026 and hosts nearly 22 million registered domains – mainly from small and medium-sized enterprises – nevertheless intends to make its mark in the cloud and AI sectors, in particular, by capitalising on the momentum towards digital sovereignty. Operating 30 data centres worldwide, Ionos has notably contributed to the development of Nextcloud Workspace, an open-source and sovereign alternative to Microsoft 365, whose data is stored entirely in European data centres, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
